The Greatest Feuds In Modern Football
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00:00If there's one thing that really boils my LucasAid sport, it's when football commentators
00:08sit awkwardly silent during a massive on-pitch bust-up, and then just tut and say,
00:12Nobody wants to see this.
00:14Er, wrong, nerds.
00:18Everybody wants to see this, it's one of the best things about the game.
00:22You see, being a football fan means feeding your own brain a constant diet of misplaced hope,
00:26and even more misplaced petty grudges.
00:29So the few flashpoints where the players themselves indulge in their own juvenile
00:32aggression is just... brilliant.
00:34Anyway, let's take a look at the really juicy ones.
00:37I'm Adam Cleary, this is 442, and these are the 10 Greatest Feuds in Modern Football.
00:43Number 10, Karim Benzema vs Didier Deschamps
00:45During his six years out of the French national team,
00:48Benzema won three Champions Leagues, three Club World Cups, two UEFA Super Cups,
00:52and a La Liga title.
00:53Meaning that whatever manager decided to leave him out must have had a really good reason?
00:58Well, in the case of Didier Deschamps,
00:59he decided that Benzema's arrest in November 2015 for...
01:03allegedly blackmailing international colleague Matthew Valbuena over a sex tape
01:09was probably justification enough.
01:11And despite getting back into the squad, it's rumbled on ever since.
01:14Benzema even recently labelling Deschamps a clown for sending him home from the World Cup
01:18with an injury.
01:19Which is... great fun.
01:21Number 9, Arsene Wenger vs Jose Mourinho
01:24One of the great managerial rivalries of Premier League history,
01:26the ill feeling between the French and Portuguese bosses also produced some fantastic quotes.
01:31Mourinho called Wenger a voyeur in 2006, and two years later,
01:35the Frenchman called his counterpart
01:37disconnected with reality and very disrespectful.
01:40And if you are watching, Arsene, I am genuinely quite sorry about that impression.
01:44Now, they both claim to have squashed the beef these days,
01:47but a recent punditry team-up for the Champions League final
01:50gave us some television tension that you could have cut with a spoon.
01:53Number 8, Roy Keane vs Patrick Vieira
01:56Nothing, not the managers, not the fans,
01:58nothing better encapsulated the bitter rivalry
02:01between Manchester United and Arsenal at the turn of the millennium
02:05than Keane vs Vieira.
02:07It's woven into the very fabric of Premier League folklore.
02:11You know the story, tensions peaked at Highbury in February 2005
02:14when the Irishman took exception to comments by Vieira,
02:18who he later revealed he thought was bullying teammate Gary Neville.
02:21Quite how he feels about watching Jamie Carragher
02:23practically throw his magic little pen at them on Monday Night Football
02:26remains to be seen.
02:27Anyway, back to the tunnel and referee Graeme Paul had to step in
02:30as Keane made a beeline for the Gunners midfielder
02:33while shouting,
02:34We'll see you out there!
02:35This rumbled on in every fixture between the two
02:37during their time in the league,
02:38and they both now preach what great respect they have for each other.
02:42But, come on, we all saw the ITV World Cup coverage, yeah?
02:46I've seen better masked resentment in divorce hearings,
02:49although not any of the ones I've been personally involved in.
02:52Number 7, Gareth Bale vs Real Madrid.
02:54Wales, golf, Madrid, in that order.
02:58The pictures of Gareth Bale's beaming face
03:00behind a flag carrying that message
03:01after the Welsh secured Euro 2020 qualification
03:04further soured his already tetchy relationship
03:07with the Bernabeu faithful.
03:08The winger was booed, yeah, relatively loudly at his next home game
03:12while a banner was revealed in response that read,
03:14Rodrigo, Vinny, Lucas, Bale, in that order.
03:19He was promptly loaned back to Tottenham
03:20in the hope that absence would make the heart grow fonder,
03:22but upon returning the following season,
03:25managed only seven games as he quietly saw out his contract.
03:28However, in what was, quite literally, getting the last word,
03:32Bale signed for Los Angeles FC in 2022
03:35and immediately sent a message
03:37to the club's not inconsiderable Hispanic supporter base
03:40in fluent Spanish,
03:42something the Madrid press had repeatedly said
03:44he was incapable of doing
03:46because he didn't care about the club.
03:48Madre deus.
03:50Number six, VAR versus itself.
03:53Prior to its major introduction in 2017,
03:55football fans were united
03:56in their assessment of modern refereeing.
03:58It's inconsistent, the margins are too fine,
04:01and if technology can help officials,
04:03then they should probably just use it.
04:05Okay, said VAR,
04:06which for the purposes of this video,
04:07I'm treating as if it's a sentient entity,
04:09we'll review all these decisions.
04:11And it did, to the point where games
04:13were routinely being paused for 10 minutes
04:15while some nerd in a truck frantically tried to draw lines on a pitch
04:18using an Etch-A-Sketch,
04:19which was, yeah, quite bad.
04:21In the years since,
04:22it's been a constant battle of streamlining the process
04:24and rewriting the rules
04:25to the point now where nobody has any idea
04:28what it's actually checking
04:30and what power it actually has.
04:32All the while, the officials charged with implementing it
04:34get dragged further into the spotlight
04:36it was supposed to spare them from in the first place.
04:38Just let f***ing robots do it or something.
04:41Anything would be better than this.
04:43Number five, Nicolas Anelka versus Raymond Domenech.
04:45Le sulc, and I mean, come on,
04:47let's face it, if you get a nickname like that,
04:49chances are you might be the problem,
04:51fell out big time with the then-manager of France in 2010.
04:54Apparently, he had some,
04:56ooh, I don't speak French,
04:58unsavory, let's say, remarks at his coach
05:00during a 2-0 defeat to Mexico
05:02and was promptly sent home from the tournament as a result.
05:05And just to pour even more gasoline on this,
05:07the French Football Federation gave him
05:09an 18-game international ban,
05:11effectively ending his national career in the process.
05:13Never the type to just let that go, though.
05:15Domenech would later say about an emerging Kylian Mbappe
05:18that he has the choice of being Ronaldo or Anelka.
05:22Meow.
05:23Anelka responded with his own assessment,
05:24saying Mbappe could also be a Domenech,
05:27a small player and a coach
05:29who hasn't won any trophies for 10 years.
05:31Also, meow.
05:32Number four, Roy Keane versus Mick McCarthy.
05:34The public fallout between Ireland's manager and captain
05:37quickly became one of the most memorable incidents
05:39of the 2002 World Cup.
05:41Keane, somehow 30 here,
05:42despite looking like an uncle
05:43who your parents repeatedly remind you
05:45not to wind up under any circumstances,
05:48gave an explosive interview on the eve of the tournament.
05:51In it, he criticised the team's preparation,
05:53and this culminated in that now-infamous
05:55head-to-head with McCarthy himself,
05:57in which the Manchester United midfielder pulled no punches.
06:00And by pulled no punches,
06:02I mean he literally told him
06:04you can stick your World Cup up your bollocks.
06:07Sorry, sorry, sorry.
06:08You can stick your World Cup up your bollocks.
06:11It was really more Northern Irish, that, wasn't it?
06:12Should probably delete that.
06:13Anyway, moving on, I'm not a doctor or anything,
06:16but unless there is something dramatically wrong
06:18with my own bollocks,
06:19I've got no idea how sticking a World Cup up them
06:22would work in practice, like, at all.
06:25Neither did McCarthy, apparently,
06:26as unsurprisingly, Keane was sent home
06:28and didn't ever play for Ireland again.
06:30Number three, Maxi Lopez versus Mauro Ricciardi,
06:33and wow, this one.
06:34Okay, I'm gonna make this incredibly short,
06:36because with just a few key facts,
06:38I think you can easily fill the rest in for yourself.
06:40Maxi Lopez and Mauro Ricciardi
06:42were best buddies at Sampdoria.
06:44Oh, friend.
06:46Mauro Ricciardi then married this woman, Wanda Nara.
06:49Wanda Nara is Maxi Lopez's ex-wife.
06:52Mauro Ricciardi then got this tattoo.
06:54This tattoo is of Maxi Lopez's own children
06:58from the aforementioned marriage to Wanda Nara.
07:01How Lopez hasn't been spotted in an unzipped tracksuit,
07:04screaming,
07:05Ella ha vuelto a los ninos contra mi!
07:09She stopped the race against us!
07:10It's frankly beyond me.
07:12Number two, Zinedine Zidane versus Marco Materazzi.
07:15Yeah, you absolutely don't need me
07:17to paint the picture for you here, do you?
07:19You know the game, you know the players,
07:21you know the occasion, you know the outcome.
07:24All we can do at this stage,
07:25some 15 years plus removed,
07:27is consider the question.
07:29If someone you barely know
07:31said they'd rather have your sister than your shirt,
07:34what would you do?
07:35Well, you'd headbutt them, square in the chest,
07:38in the closing stages of the final game of your career
07:40on the biggest possible stage,
07:42condemning your entire nation to penalty shootout
07:44heartbreak in the process, wouldn't you?
07:46Which means it was perfectly normal.
07:48I mean, not for me, of course.
07:50I don't have a sister.
07:50If Materazzi had said that to me,
07:52I'd have just been like, what?
07:54Then probably, I don't know,
07:55gone and scored the winner.
07:56Oh well, funny old life.
07:58Number one, Arsene Wenger versus Sir Alex Ferguson.
08:01Look up footballing feud in the dictionary
08:03and what will you find?
08:05Well, nothing because dictionaries
08:07don't have symbolic phrases,
08:08but if they did,
08:09you'd see a picture of these two.
08:11Now, I know I said nothing symbolized the rivalry,
08:13quite like Roy Keane versus Patrick Vieira,
08:15but the difference is this was the rivalry,
08:18not merely a neat visual representation of it.
08:21A nine-year battle for the highest honours in the game
08:24between Man United and Arsenal
08:25took from 1996 to 2005
08:28and was at times as thrilling on the touchline
08:31as it was on the pitch.
08:33From the Battle of Old Trafford
08:34to Pizzagate to John O'Shea
08:36somehow scoring the most composed chip
08:38you've ever seen in your life,
08:39I don't know what was going on there.
08:40It was a time of massive confrontation
08:42between the two teams and their managers,
08:45each iconic as the clubs themselves
08:47were at the forefront.
08:48They exchanged barbs in the press,
08:50they rattled each other on TV,
08:51they gave football fans the petty squabbles
08:54that all petty squabble sins have had to live up to.
08:57And again, they speak of their respect
08:59for each other these days,
09:00but we know,
09:01we know what's really going on there.
09:05We know.
09:06And that's it, that's the video.
09:07Thank you so very much for watching
09:09and making it all the way till the end.
09:11Somebody's keen.
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09:28Goodbye.